Resources Update
Firstly, just wanted to post a link to this entry about Blackboard: Blackboard Is Losing Customers, but What Does It Mean? Basically, its too early to tell anything yet, but its interesting nonetheless.
Now, I wanted to recap the current state of Resources in Sakai. I've actually been able to make it to two conference calls, so I feel pretty plugged in right now.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that the core "Resources" tool in Sakai is a key area for improvement in user experience, and it's definitely an important issue for us at NYU. We have articulated it as something like "course material organization and presentation," and many new tools or approaches are currently in various stages of work. Here is a summary (especially useful as we approach the Newport Conference):
- regular Resources tool
- Resources Viewer aka Content Viewer
- Citations Helper
- POCS (new!)
- rWiki
- Melete
- some kind of possible JSR-170-based front end?
- a possible re-write of the Resources tool (possibly based on RSF), codename: ResourcesWOW!
So far, the things that seem the most interesting to me are Resources Viewer and Citations Helper. I was happy to hear that two of my three dealbreaker issues for Resources Viewer have been fixed, and that soon Resources Viewer will be able to handle content not strictly in Resources (like Assignments, etc.)
Also, it was interesting to hear a tiny bit about Mark Norton's POCS. It's interesting that some of these tools are defined by purely functional requirements (Resources Viewer, Citations Helper, rWiki) and others are more to satisfy a certain pedagogical approach (Melete, POCS). It's interesting (but not surprising) that I find the former more interesting.
In other news, the Resources WG will probably have a meeting in Newport on Friday, possibly sharing a half day with Fluid, but nothing is confirmed yet.